Are you familiar with the Culdcept franchise? It’s a turn-based strategy title that takes place on a pre-pathed grid (aka a “game board” layout) and involves decks of cards and other standard board-game accoutrements; except it’s packaged in a videogame format.
Are you familiar with the *music* to the Culdcept franchise? Because it’s kind of awesome. Kenji Ito’s score for Culdcept II remains, in my opinion, one of his best works (Jayson’s opinion found here). But the very first Culdcept, released for Saturn and PlayStation many moons ago, had a soundtrack co-composed by the venerable Yuzo Koshiro and the lesser-known Takeshi Yanagawa (a colleague of Koshiro’s who worked with him on Shenmue and other projects).
That original game was remade for the Nintendo DS in 2008. 5pb.Records published a three disc soundtrack (VGCD-0148) for the DS remake; two discs of music designed specifically for the DS (with help from JOE DOWN Studio), and a third disc of music as it was originally designed for the PS/Saturn version. In other words, it’s two soundtracks in one! Hence the album’s full title: Culdcept DS Original Soundtrack Deluxe.
We’ll help you wade through the version differences, and make a final judgment call on whether or not you should go “Deluxe,” after the jump. (more…)